


Struck in time

by Rogercat



Category: Original Work
Genre: Adults, Arranged Marriage, Class Differences, Gen, Pregnancy, Reality, Secret Santa, Slavery, Time Travel, Trapped in the Past, Vikings, Young Adults
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-23
Updated: 2020-12-23
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:02:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28265856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rogercat/pseuds/Rogercat
Summary: Three different persons from the 21th century ends up in the Viking age, and their fates there are vastly different
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4





	1. Eir

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Nuredhel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nuredhel/gifts).



Tonight she had one of those strange dreams. Of a past she barely recalled because over ten years had passed and she would never return to that time. One and a half decades, to be more precise. This was her fifth year as a married woman, since she had married at 16. 

“Beloved? Are you feeling alright?” her husband Birger asked in the middle of putting on his boots when he noticed that his four years younger wife was not yet raising from the bed. 

“Yes, I am just a little slow today.”

She had a legal excuse if anyone in the household thought her acting a little strange today, she was only two months from giving birth to her third child and being the mistress of this wealthy farm was difficult enough without her own two older children running around. 

“Come on, the animals need water and their feed, get going! The breakfast meal is not going to serve itself! Come on, let us banish away the morning cold!”

The tralls did as she ordered, apart from the female one who had to light the fire in the heath again and then help Eir with making the barley porridge for breakfast alongside some bread with butter and cheese, as well some boiled eggs for her children. 

  
  


Eir knew that she had married well. Birger was not a jarl but he still was a reasonably wealthy karl, earning his riches on raids towards other countries over the sea and inheriting his big family farm when his older brother had died without children. 

“It is so nice to just do the same things everyday, without social pressure…” 

This made her think of the dream she had that night. 

_ Eva. _

The  _ Christian _ name she had been born with, in a future more than 1 200 years to come. The 21th century. A faint memory of her biological mother constantly muttering about the importance of studying well, even from a young age, and what careers that would pay well in adulthood. How she often had been focusing on her social media or driving them around to whatever new activity that was said to be important for young children's development when  _ Eva _ only had wanted some time with only the two together. 

“I only recall him, my father, as a distant figure who often worked late in his office work…” 

A runestone, Eir faintly recalled. Something about them being on yet another one of those “group activities” out in the woods for families with young children. How her mother responded to yet another phone call that always took her attention away, and failed to follow after  _ Eva _ as she spotted a fox in the distance, eager to look closer on the wild animal. Walking past a runestone while wishing that she could have a life that did not make her feel unwanted because her parents never seemed to really focus on her...

No, Eir did not want to remember that life, with the parents who seemed to be focusing more on their social image, pretending to be a normal happy growing family yet in reality a far cry from what they showed others. Rather, she saw herself as reborn, when her current father, a successful raider, had found her wandering in the woods outside where his farm laid, with neither mother nor father in sight. For her adoptive parents, with their same-aged daughter lost in illness from the previous, unusual cold winter and with no other children at that time, taking her in had been natural since it was a long way to the other nearest farm and the autumn days were not far from the first frosty night. 

“Such a difference it was at first...no social media in any form, no school or those leisure activities…no church to go to on Sundays...”

But thanks to her young age as she got stranded in the Viking Age without anyone knowing how it happened, Eir had adjusted far better than if she had been an adult. Now, as a married adult woman, about to have her third child soon, her birth century was more of a distant dream that she began to forget more and more as time passed. At the beginning, during that first winter before finally learning some basic words in Old Norse, she had been so lost, so unsure on what to do, but her adoptive parents had been kind and patient. 

“This is my life now. I do not know for how long I will live, but I will be the best wife and housewife that I can be.”

Eir had no desire for adventure or anything else that could prove to become dangerous, she was happy to stay at home on the farm because she knew that she was needed there when her husband was away, and perhaps once or twice each year accompany Birger to the nearest town if there was something special she needed and which could not be made at home. 

  
  


Birger, as well, knew that he had gotten a good marriage match in Eir. Over the past years, he had heard rumours about strange women and men showing up in unexpected places near various Viking settlements. Dressed in strange clothing at being found, speaking a language that did sound somewhat similar to Old Norse yet still foreign. And above all, how  **_ignorant_ ** they were about the chores that needed to be done on a farm to get food on the table daily. The men had no idea how to plow the fields so grains could be sown, handling any of the animals, hunt for food and other useful parts of the wild animals out in the woods and in the sea, sometimes being so weak despite being obviously well-fed that they were barely able to do the heavy chores outdoors that the women did not have to do because they were doing household chores. The women were hopeless at spinning and weaving linen or wool thread into fabric for clothing, barely managing the sewing to keep the pieces of cloth together. 

“I am not the only married Viking around who has seen the value of a properly-raised daughter be raised even higher than before, and that people are willing to pay a high bride price. In contrast to those poorly-taught strange women who may only be good as tralls, Eir and other free-born women here in our settlements have become valuable.”

Birger had promised himself to never bring home a such useless female thrall to the farm, for as one of his good friends told them on the latest raid: those women had strange ideas about all men and women being equal, and seemed horrified at the very idea of using tralls or that a free man could have concubines and children born from those. Eir knew that he might one day bring a concubine into the household, but that was an accepted part of their culture and even her own brother brought home one from England just last year.

“Nah. Better to keep Eir happy in the marriage bed, so we will be fruitful with many children hopefully surviving to adulthood and there will be no divoice at some point in the future. Remarriage is possible, yes, but another wife will not be her.”

Birger cared a lot for his wife even if he had been away on two raids that lasted several months since they married, and he wanted Eir to not feel neglected in any way. She was too precious for such, a good example of a Viking wife and mother that every husband would be proud to have. A wife like Eir was a treasure that only a fool would throw away. 


	2. Julia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a modern business woman finds out that the reality of the past is very different from what media says

“Are you trying to escape work today by pretending to sleep for long, again? Get up, lazy woman!” 

One of the other tralls pushed her harshly, to show that she would not manage to fool them. She had to work already before dawn, for the animals needed food and water before eggs would be collected from the hens and geese while the cows, female goats and sheeps were to be milked, the stables cleaned by the older male slaves as the animals was let out in the pastures for grazing during the day, sticks and broken branches in the forest needed be picked up to become firewood every day for the fire together with the chopped wood no matter what the weather was. Then the wooden food bowls and wooden spoons would be washed after breakfast so that they could be used again for the evening meal. Some days the laundry would be carried to the river to be washed and everything else needed to get the clothes clean… 

  
  


Julia did not even know how she had ended up in the Viking age, she only recalled that she had been in that open-air museum with her nephew, who had wanted to visit as part of a homework for his history classes. But Julia, along with a man in his twenties, had somehow entered a loud argument with one of the actors playing one of the family members on the Viking farm over how fans of self-claimed historical fiction movies, tv shows and books seemed to favour action-oriented tomboys swinging swords over classical girly girls who could cook and sew. The older woman had even complained loudly about modern people who were blind to what had once been necessary survival skills but who were now being completely forgotten, because of how comfortable people now lived in the 21st century and in general had a life free from endless daily tasks and risks of starvation caused by a poor harvest that their ancestors could only dream of. 

But Julia knew that after this argument, when she foolishly claimed that she preferred the idea of being a shield-maiden over a common house wife if she now had a past life in the Viking age, when she passed by a ancient runestone not far from the open-air museum, she had suddenly found herself outside a different farm. A farm that was being attacked by raiders and the people living there taken as tralls if they avoided being killed, just like she herself had been because she was too frozen in shock and terror over the far too realistic scene to notice the warrior sneaking up behind her and knocking her out so she could be taken prisoner. 

  
  


Now two years had passed since that horrible day, and Julia now lived the miserable life of a trall, as the slaves were called, after being sold on the slave market in Birka. The farm where she now lived, was next to the sea, so that even if there was a bad harvest, the people on the farm would not starve too much in the winter months thanks to fishing. 

“I really was naive about how much work was needed to do in a household in historical times because there are no machines to do the heavy or dangerous work…”

If she ever found a way to return home, she would  _ never again _ fall for modern media's and fiction's claim that tomboys and other non-classical girly girls were the real heros, that they did not need to know cooking and other domestic skills for survival that women had been taught in historical times. Not after seeing just how much work it took in making a simple food dish from scratch, and everything else in the household that was the work of women. A woman from the 21th century, like Julia herself, would indeed be spoiled by the standards of their ancestors, as she had found out more than once over the past two years, generally by the hard way. 

“Ow!” 

Grinding grain into fine flour on the rotary mill was a heavy work that took many hours, and flour was not only needed for bread and stews. Julia was not alone among the female tralls to find herself with an arching back at the end of this work, when her mistress was pleased with how finely she had grinded the flour. 

“Damn it all....why did this happen to me, when I only said that a shield-maiden seemed more awesome than a normal housewife…”

She looked over towards the other female tralls and free servants who were busy carding wool before spinning it to thread and weaving cloth alongside making things ready for the evening meal in a few hours. Among them were a family of a mother and her young children. They had lost her husband, the father of the family, to the winter flu during the previous year. Without a critical working family member, they risked to starve unless being taken in by neighbors as servants. 

“I want to go home…”

But Julia could not return home. First, she had no idea where she currently was, undoubtedly somewhere in the area where Stockholm one day would be since she had been sold in Birka, but she did not know if the attacked farm had been in Sweden as well. Second, as a trall, she was part of the property of the farm that the oldest young master would inherit at the passing of his father and forbidden to leave. 

And…

The third reason, that was the cause of her growing belly right now. The future master of the farm had sired a child on Julia in the past months, but she could forget the hope of being freed by who the father was. Her child would be a trall just like her, and there was nothing Julia could do about it. 

Somehow, she felt as if this was the punishment for being so ignorant about the real hardships of the Viking life and foolish enough to think that the most common life was not there she would have been living. After all, Julia had been forced to remember that being a housewife was the norm for Viking women, not a shield-maiden joining the raiders on travels across the sea to other countries. 


	3. Simon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> different standards and views on customs can be deadly

He was proud to call himself a vegetarian, and against animal cruelty. So for Simon, ending up stuck in the Viking age was... a big culture shock, to say the least. Especially in how the Vikings had meat and fish as part of their diet for survival, how limited their diet seemed in contrast to the abundance of vegetarian and vegan products that Simon was used to eat in the 21th century, as well that a lot of their everyday objects was made from animal skin, bones and horns while eating their meat after slaughter. 

“Oi, what are you being so upset about again? Stop acting as if you have never seen a slaughtered animal before,” one of the other tralls commented when Simon once again had to empty his stomach from the sight of the slaughtered pigs that would be served at the banquet in a few days for the farmer, his wife and many of the neighbors. 

  
  


Among other things that shocked him, even after being captured and sold as a slave, was the norm that viking women generally married while still teenagers, and some of them were not even the first wife of their husband. 

“Stop looking at my stepmom, slave!” 

At the moment the oldest son on the wealthy farm, 17-year-old Aric, had just finished a punishment that was nothing uncommon since some months ago when his father had married a second wife. Aric himself was promised to a future bride as well, with the wedding intended for next year. 

“That slave was looking at lady Tora again, surely intending to start ranting in that strange language once more.” 

Tora had arrived as the new wife of the current master Harald after that his first wife had died, and despite being only two years younger than the oldest stepchild she would now have, she could trust Aric and his younger sister Tora to not resent her. After all, their mother had died from illness and not from something she possibly could have caused. There was nothing uncommon with a stepmother who was closer to their own age. 

“Aric, do not kill that slave. We need him alive to do work in the fields, and replacing him costs money if we buy a new one on the market, unless you want to go raiding in the spring and be late to your own wedding?” 

“Excuse me for nearly going overboard with the beatings, stepmother,” the heir answered and handed over the cudgel to one of the servants. As he had stopped beating up Simon, two other slaves dragged him away so he could get treatment for the large bruises he would have tomorrow. 

“Oh great, that weakling is going to help clean the area that is meant to become a new field once all the trees are felled and uprooted?” 

Being a modern-day man who worked in an office as his chosen occupation, Simon was not the fittest among the male slaves. Many had mocked his lack of strength already at his arrival to the farm, and his modern-day standards only made him seem even more of a fool when he could not even speak Old Norse to explain why several viking customs seemed to shock him so much. 

Despite spending the previous three years stuck in the past, Simon's ignorance of the reality of Viking life outside what he barely recalled from his school lessons and maybe one of those fictional tv shows that mostly focused on the Viking raids and the comforts he had while living in a modern-day society, was something that caused him a lot of trouble in the daily tasks he had to work on as a slave without any of the human rights he was used to. 

And of course, when it came to the different standards of his modern life and those of the Viking age, like the age when you counted as an adult and was old enough to marry....

“I hope that father orders you to be a sacrifice to the gods at the bot this year!” 

Ragnhild, the second oldest daughter of the family that owned Simon, had also noticed that the strange-acting male slave seemed to not like that her stepmother was only four years older than herself. As such, she took up a new duty; to defend Tora from the insolent slave that really did not prove himself worth hardly even a tenth of the money that her father had paid for him at the slave market three years ago. 

“Stop acting as if my parents are criminals for marrying despite that Tora is younger than Father! I will also marry in a few years if I live long enough, and marrying young is a way to ensure that we have a bigger chance to have more children, hopefully surviving to adulthood!” 

While neither Ragnhild or her older sister Estrid, who had married two years ago, had been trained as shield-maidens, their father had nonetheless allowed his two daughters to learn how to defend themselves with smaller battle axes better suited for the body build of women and shields, it was part of his idea that they would be even better at defending their future homes and families if they at least knew the basics of using weapons. So now it was nothing uncommon to see Ragnhild terrifying Simon around the farm whatever she spotted him looking at Tora. Given that no one truly understood what he would say in modern Swedish, most got the impression that Simon actually desired Tora since she was young and felt resentment over that he was a trall in contrast to her being a free woman born in a well-off mechant family from Hedeby, thus being unable to marry her. 

“You have been eying Tora for too long, useless trall! Kiss the lips of my axe instead if you now are that desperate for a kiss from a pretty woman!” 

And despite being only eleven years old, Ragnhild made good use of that threat. With two of the house guards already holding Simon still for the beating, it was no problem for her to kill him by driving the axe into his mouth when one guard forced his mouth open by the jaw. Perhaps it was an inhuman act by the standards of a thousand years later, but Ragnhild would hardly be the only Viking to kill a trall for something that was not acceptable behavior. After all, slavery was a part of Viking society and few saw tralls as little better than part of the property like cattle. 


End file.
